[According to the recent NBC/WSJ poll] Romney’s favorite Obama quote — "You didn’t build that" — isn’t even a net drag for the president. After hearing his comments, voters reacted positively by a 36-32 margin overall, and independents and "up for grabs" voters actually approved of them by slightly higher margins. …

The NBC/WSJ polling about how negatively respondents react to the 47 percent comment comes on top of similar polls that suggest a high awareness of the story as well. So those who hear it, don’t like it — and lots of people have heard it. A survey by Pew found 67 percent of voters aware of remarks — about half complained they had even heard too much — and they disapproved of the remarks by a 55-23 margin. Another poll by the Washington Post and ABC News found voters disapproved of Romney’s comments by a 54-32 margin, with the effect more pronounced among independents.

Meanwhile, Jonathan Karl parses a new study from the Wesleyan Media Project showing that Team Obama is out-advertising Team Romney in battleground states:

In the three weeks after the conventions, Obama and Democratic groups ran more ads than Romney and Republican groups in 14 of the top 15 markets for this campaign. Only in Las Vegas have the Republicans ran more ads (and without much impact; Obama is ahead in most Nevada polls)… in most markets, it hasn’t even been close. In Norfolk, Virginia, for example, Obama and allies ran 3,387 ads compared to just 1,583 for Romney and his allies.

In new advertising, the Romney people today released a spot in which Joe Biden helps make their closing argument (ad buy size/scope unknown):

The campaign also re-released a shorter version of their big message-shifter (ad buy size/scope unknown). For its part, the RNC is out with a new web video deploying old debate footage from Obama to preemptively counter any promises he makes tonight:

From the other side of the trail, the Obama campaign is running yet another coal-focused ad – airing in Youngstown, Ohio – that hits Romney for using miners as "props" in one of his earlier ads. In dirtier attacks, the outside group OPSEC PAC just released a swiftboat ad starring former Navy SEAL Scott Taylor, who alleges that the Obama administration didn't "tell the truth" about what happened in Benghazi and that the president is "playing politics" with the nation's security on both the embassy attack and the Bin Laden operation:

The group says the ad will be airing in Virginia with a "significant" amount of money behind it. Lastly, NumbersUSA, considered a "hate group" by the Southern Poverty Law Center, is up with a new spot attempting to pit black voters against immigrants:

The group behind the ad, NumbersUSA, opposes all new immigration to the United States, including legal immigration. It plans to debut the controversial ad on MSNBC, a left-leaning network with a higher proportion of African-American viewers than the other networks, and run it again the next morning on "Morning Joe," according to a spokeswoman.